Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the German Shepherd Dog Forums forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Additional Options

Miscellaneous Options

Automatically parse links in text

Automatically embed media (requires automatic parsing of links in text to be on).

Automatically retrieve titles from external links

Topic Review (Newest First)

08-24-2014 11:06 AM

sterlingmaloryarcher

Thanks for everyone's input. I did end up switching to a raw diet and we're currently on Day #5. He's been on raw chicken the entire time and the itching has drastically reduced. The spots on his tummy are also slowly disappearing, with only one little area that is still spotted, and the big dark spot I noticed that had really concerned me is gone. Also his stools are no longer runny or loose, after the initial adjustment period on the first day. I'm assuming that he was primarily allergic to something in the kibble, but since he's still itching (mostly right after we went outside), I've started to add some coconut oil with his chicken to help in case it is a skin allergy or other skin issue.

If he's still itching even after the coconut oil, I'll be switching to another protein source in the third week so I can find out if it is still a chicken allergy then. But so far he has been doing a lot better and I'm hoping that the issues will clear up entirely with a raw diet.

08-24-2014 10:54 AM

lhczth

Chicken is often used because it is inexpensive compared to other protein sources. You can feed a raw diet using turkey, duck, beef, pork, rabbit, venison, goat, etc and totally avoid chicken.

Trying a limited ingredient kibble may be the easiest way to start. The fact that the pup is now off of the Science Diet junk is a huge help. I would give new foods more than a week, closer to a month, when looking for improvements unless you see the puppy getting worse.

08-24-2014 02:27 AM

RubyTuesday

I've seen people claim their dog did well on raw chicken but couldn't tolerate kibble with chicken in it. There are a number of possibilities in this scenario, but it is certainly worth trying raw chicken. Before trying raw chicken you want to be certain that he's not currently showing symptoms of food sensitivities. Good luck!

08-23-2014 08:48 PM

Liesje

Raw (done balanced) is definitely the healthiest. My oldest dog does not do well with any poultry and does awesome on a "limited ingredient diet" good kibble, so if you don't do raw, there are kibbles available without chicken. If you do raw and aren't confident in getting all the ingredients or you need to avoid chicken, you could try prepackaged stuff like Blue Ridge Beef. I think you buy it in 2 or 4lb tubes and they have different meats available.

08-19-2014 09:04 AM

misslesleedavis1

Dont have a suggestion but i do love me some archer haha

08-19-2014 09:04 AM

sterlingmaloryarcher

Thinking about switching to raw due to possible chicken allergy

So I think my 4 month old puppy might be allergic to chicken, since he has similar symptoms to my previous dog who was also allergic to chicken: frequent itching, spots on stomach, loose/runny stools...

When I got him about a week ago, the vet had him on Hills Science Diet, and I switched him to Blue Wilderness Puppy (chicken-based, grain-free) and his itching went down significantly, so I'm assuming he does better on grain-free. I'm planning on going on an elimination diet with kibble, provided that I can find chicken/grain-free kibble that isn't sky high in calcium. But if it's mind-numbingly expensive, I'd rather feed him raw, especially since I (fortunately) live in a town where I have easy access to locally-raised "natural" meats.

But with that all being said, the majority of raw diets seem to be predominantly made up of chicken meat. Has anyone experienced a "change" in allergies when they switched from chicken kibble to raw chicken, where the dog can eat raw chicken just fine with no allergic reaction? That would be awesome if so, since chicken is readily available and it would be significantly easier to follow raw food recommendations/menus. If that has happened before, I would rather start him off on feeding raw chicken for a bit and see if his allergies subside, before going into more exotic (read as "expensive") meats.

Thanks for any advice/help you can provide! I've never had to feed a dog raw before, or even really consider it, so I'm completely new to this and don't want to mess up my dog's digestive system more than it's probably already bothered with his original food.